Question

Right, so I'm working on Problem Set 4, and have found myself stuck on the 'find best shift' part. I've gotten everything before it, I think, but right now every time my recommended shift is '26'.
Here's my current code for it:
ctr = -1
Yaaay = False
while ctr<=25 and Yaaay == False:
ctr +=1
apply_coder(text, build_decoder(ctr))
current = 0
spacelist = [-1]
while current 10 years ago

Answer 1

So the code didn't get completely through. Here's the actual code:
ctr = -1
Yaaay = False
while ctr<=25 and Yaaay == False:
ctr +=1
apply_coder(text, build_decoder(ctr))
current = 0
spacelist = [-1]
while current<len(text):
if text[current] == ' ':
spacelist.append(current)
current +=1
k = 1
good = True
if len(spacelist)>1:
while k<len(spacelist) and good == True:
Word = text[spacelist[k-1]+1:spacelist[k]]
if Word in wordlist:
good = True
else:
good = False
k +=1
else:
if text in wordlist:
good = True
else:
good = False
Yaaay = good
return ctr

Answer 2

I've returned your function below, I've put in a bunch of print statements that show some of the values as your loop walks through each value. Once you see the values, try uncommenting a block of code I put in that is commented out by 4 hash tags:
### TODO
ctr = -1
Yaaay = False
while ctr<=25 and Yaaay == False:
ctr += 1
## print "text before apply_coder = ", text
## apply_coder(text, build_decoder(ctr)) ## function is changing text, but not assigning that value to any variable
codedText = apply_coder(text, build_decoder(ctr)) ## try this
#### print "text after apply_coder = ", text
#### words = codedText.split()
#### print 'words = ', words, 'ctr =', ctr
#### for word in words:
#### if is_word(wordlist, word):
#### print True
current = 0
spacelist = [-1]
## print "len(text) = ", len(text)
while current<len(text):
if codedText[current] == ' ':
## print "text[current] = ", text[current]
spacelist.append(current)
current +=1
k = 1
good = True
## print 'spacelist = ', spacelist
if len(spacelist)>1:
while k<len(spacelist) and good == True: # will always only go through once, good will always be set to False
Word = codedText[spacelist[k-1]+1:spacelist[k]]

print "k = ", k, "codedText = ", codedText, " codedText[spacelist[k-1]+1:spacelist[k]] = ", codedText[spacelist[k-1]+1:spacelist[k]]

if Word in wordlist: ## when evaluating Word, this doesn't account for any punctuation.
print "word is in wordlist"
good = True
else:
print 'good is false, ', Word, 'is not a word.'
good = False
k += 1
else:
if codedText in wordlist:
print "good = True"
good = True
else:
print 'good is false, ', codedText, 'is not a word.'
good = False
Yaaay = good
print 'returning, ctr = ', ctr, '. Yaaay = ', Yaaay
return ctr